Streams Of Consciousness

All things considered, I've had a wonderful day.

Up at 0600, I listened to Armstrong & Getty who were in rare form.

Perusing my Twitter timeline, I noticed that the San Francisco Giants would be streaming the day's practice at their website.

I clicked over just in time to watch batting practice. It was great to see Buster Posey knocking them outta the park again! His injuries appear to be fully mended. So many Giants were hurt last season. They're all back to work, and the team looks hungry.

During the webcast, the announcers were soliciting questions via twitter. I fired off a bunch, and lo and behold they answered one on the webcast: "@CorduroyPlanet asks: How many catchers will make the 25 man roster?"

Answer: Two. Posey and a back-up.

I'm pulling for Chris Stewart to be the back-up, but I figure Héctor Sánchez will get the call because he's a switch hitting powerhouse, and it takes some time to "season" a young catcher to Big League reality. Sánchez stands to get a day or two behind the plate weekly, until Buster Posey finds his legs.

It was so great to hear the crack of the bat again! Spring doesn't start for almost a month, but spring training makes nothing but springtime music!

The Spring Training Stream ended in time for the Noon News. I tried to tune in KPIX  channel 5 from San Francisco, but CableTV wasn't havin' any of it.

I've been tracking yet another Winter Wildfire up in Napa County since Thursday afternoon. The Soda Fire started mid-day Thursday when a vineyard contractor was burning pruning debris and root piles, and the forecast high northeast winds blew embers into the underbrush. The contractor was unable to arrest the flames and the fire escaped into the steep Soda Canyon terrain.

I have good friends who have 1000 acres at the bottom of Soda Canyon Rd, with a turn of the century farmhouse, and a few acres of Syrah vines. I was the cat skinner who cleared those acres on a vintage cable-blade Caterpillar.

 Oakland's KTVU2 recently began streaming all of it's newscasts, so click*click, I watched on the really small screen. The news was good...yesterdays gusty northeast winds, had turned into light southerly breezes, and temps are forecast to fall back into the mid-60s.

Fortunately, the fire is up canyon, and well east of my friends' Soda Canyon Ranch, on the other side of Atlas Peak.

It's almost midnight at the DaveCave now, and the winds have been howling for the last hour. It must be the next approaching cold front which is forecast to give us a dusting Saturday night...if we're lucky...

Just so I can fall asleep tonight, I scanned the PWSs around the Napa Valley. They're recording mostly westerlies...10 MPH and under. Perfect.

Back to my perfect afternoon...My plan was to run over to Reno for a tank of gas, some HomeDepot stuff, a stop in Hirschdale for the fishing report, and to reconnoiter Boca Reservoir's ice.

SturgeUrge will be over at Lake Tahoe for his annual ski week, and traditionally we go ice fishing on Boca for a day....Truth be told? I'm really looking to see if there's any open water at the inlet end of Boca. It's been so warm that the ice is rotten, even down by the dam where we usually slay 'em.

Remember what they say about the best laid plans...I bagged the Reno trip so I could watch one more streaming event....

Back in Florida, NASA was making it's third attempt at launching their new Atlas 5 rocket carrying the NAVY's new communication satellite MUOS1 into orbit. High winds and rain forced the scrub of the first two launch attempts. SpaceflightNow provided a very robust stream, that I watched along with about 10K other stream viewers.

A picture perfect launch, and streamed without a glitch.

After the launch, I ran downtown to the Post Office and grocery store. Jeez, gas went up another dime today.

Reno is on for Monday...gas at COSTCO is 80 cents a gallon less than here in Truckee. I can buy lunch and still pocket some savings!